Reckoning With the Advent Police

I have long held off on writing an anathema against the Advent Police. Mostly because I know and love so many of them. I’ve kept silent about these well-meaning liturgical lawyers because I love the season of Christmas just as much as the next seminary nerd devout Christian. I love the anticipation, the colors, the music, and the theology.

Also, (and I know the liturgical lawyers might not readily cop to this feeling), Advent is wonderful because it is that rare time of year when we get to feel superior to all of those Christians/people who don’t know what Advent is. They just bumble through December and land at the manger. Ridiculous. When you are a member of the Advent Illuminati, you get to prepare for the coming of Christ AND feel self-righteous around Baptists–what some would call a win-win.

Who are these people that police the season before Christmas? You will know them by their propagation of the Advent Gospel: No Christmas before Christmas. There is a calendar date for putting up your nativity and they want you to darn well stick to it. The Advent Police are the people who turn their noses up at Christmas music being played at the grocery store before Thanksgiving. Or you might spot them balking at their neighbor putting up lights mid-November. The Advent Police have rules, rules, rules about Christmas trees, nutcrackers, and when it’s appropriate to listen to Mariah Carey’s Christmas album. As though Queen Mariah would ever condone such an edict.

The Advent Police love to post things on social media as though they live upstairs in Downtown Abbey:

“Went to T.J. Maxx today. Appalled that ‘Silent Night’ was playing!”

Really? Appalled? This is what appalls you?

They like to remind us that it isn’t Christmas yet (comma idiots).

These days, the Advent Police just make me tired. I am at that point in my life when I measure success in laundry baskets and changed diapers. When the season before Christmas comes, I have a massive list of things to do. Should I do my Christmas tasks begrudgingly? Should I be angry that it has all started “so early?” Would that make everyone feel better? Or is it cool if I play a little “All I Want for Christmas” in the background while I buy stocking stuffers at Target.com?

Look, I realize I’m indulging in a bit of self-righteousness of my own here. Truth is, I’m open to tips for Advent sanctification. But only from a very select group of women. If you happen to be a lady preacher, be married to a preacher yourself, parent two small children, and work two-part time jobs, then I would love your tips for how to appropriately “do Advent” in the comments section below.

[I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: I don’t even want to hear from a man this time of year. “Oh! You are a dude with an opinion about how I should be spending Advent? That’s so cute! Please tell me about it while we wrap the 4,562 presents I am responsible for buying!” Dudes, if you have that much law-laying time on your hands, I have some lights that need to be hung. Before Advent, preferably. Want some pink wine in a Christmas solo cup?]

This year the Advent Police are peeing in my Christmas stocking (yes, I know that’s not a real expression) for a whole new reason. They are leaning especially hard into the people who need Christmas the most. People are scared and worried and anxious right now. They need the lights, the hopeful music, the cheery colors, and the generosity. Of course, what they really need, what we all really need, is Jesus. And while I realize the Christmas section at the Walgreens might not be the most religiously appropriate place to start, it might be the most honest.

Because amid Dolly belting out “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” and that weird snow globe where Santa is bowing to Baby Jesus, there is a truthful need for consolation. We are all longing for the thrill of hope, because our weary world needs rejoicing.

Instead of yelling at people about how it isn’t Christmas yet, what if we had something to learn from them? In all the perceived failure to do Advent “right,” what if the Christmas-needy among us are just admitting that they need ‘the reason for the season’ right now?

After all, as much as we want to hold up December 25th as the almighty day when Mary gives birth every year, that is not exactly how this thing works. We are celebrating that God gave us Jesus to “save his people from their sins” (Matthew 2:21b). Is it even better if we wait and do it at the right moment? Is that how our faith works? We improve upon it with timing requirements?

To be clear, I love the tradition of the Advent season as much as the next Episcopalian. It is ancient, holy, and incredibly moving. Advent is our precious almost-not-yet-already season in the church. But I refuse to accept it as one more tool for division and judgment in my life. Don’t we have enough of those these days?

“Thus says the Lord, the Sunday after you eat too much turkey shall be the start of my season of waiting. Judge the ones who haven’t heard,” is not buried in the Gospel of Matthew. But you know what is in there? We will know not the day nor the time when the Lord shall return, therefore “you must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” (Matthew 24:44).

When Jesus does come back, there will be no Advent to prepare. We will have no time to police anyone. He will not wonder which Christians followed the appropriate calendar and which ones listened to “Joy to the World” in August–or, I’m hoping, which ones were sanctimoniously indignant in either direction.

All this is to say, if you find Jesus in the Advent season, then haul out your sarum blue and keep that tree hidden until December. But if you need to haul out some holly today, for the little it is worth, you have my/our blessing. Christmas is that annual moment when we proclaim our need for healing, salvation, hope, and Something Greater than ourselves. And right now is as good a time as any.

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21 comments

Can you send the Advent Police round to my place about mid-December, when the snow is up to my nostrils and the air is so cold its beginning to solidify, so that they can put up my tree and lights? Otherwise they go up when the weather is a little more conducive to this activity!

Playing Christmas music before Thanksgiving is something it is completely reasonable to be upset about. November is for remembering those who have gone before and appreciating those we have now. I wouldn’t call that Advent Policing, I would call that “Let me deal with one thing at a time, please.”

Now, I do SOME Advent policing. The manger in my nativity scene stays empty at my house until Christmas Eve. When I have the opportunity to plan worship, I make sure that the Advent hymns are not outnumbered by Christmas Carols and Hymns until December 24th… but I also recognize, as a Christian Educator, that some children will not make it to church on the 24th/25th, so the story of Jesus’ Birth must be taught on the 4th Sunday of Advent; I realize that children cope with waiting by talking about what will happen, so the baby IS in the classroom nativity scene starting the first or second Sunday of the year. And I recognize (particularly as someone with debilitating seasonal depression) that there is too much JOY in Christmas to fit into 12 days… God limiting Godself to experience life alongside us AS one of us? And that we should grab that joy when we can get it–in the anticipation of it, in the celebration of it, in the remembrance of it. The Light shines, and darkness cannot overcome it–for me, that is LITERALLY the truth I must cling to during the short, cold, dark days, and, as much as I feel the strains of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” I sometimes need to follow it up by reminding myself that that plaintive cry is followed by “Angels from the Realms of Glory” and that the “Joy to the World” I try hard to sing in December and January will be affirmed with a vengeance by the time the longer days of the Easter season reflect the miraculous victory over life over death.

Loved this. I am a Advent policeman but the doughnut eating kind …. I use it as an excuse not to decorate because I’m lazy. BTW didn’t Church of the Advent stop playing Joy to the World on Christmas Eve because they decided it was an Easter song?

Loved your post! I am a “lady preacher” also, and must admit being part of the Advent police. I do love the idea of having Advent as a time of reflection and anticipation before the “20 days of Christmas” celebration. However, I realize it is a lost cause, my kids will probably celebrate christmas all of december and then wrap it up dec 26. Thats life. Will indeed focus more on my own advent than the fact that the stores have Christmas soda and marsipan pigs already. (live in scandinavia).
Well, off to write a few Advent sermons! I do enjoy your posts very much.

I am a ‘lady preacher’ with three kids – now no longer wee ones at ages 7, 10 and 12. I put up Advent and finish all my Christmas shopping sometime in the week before the first Sunday of Advent. Tree is up at the same time, and wrapped gifts underneath it. You see, in addition to being a full-time cleric doing her DMin, I am also the “Christmas maker” in our household (aka Chief shopper, baker, and all things entertainment and otherwise festive related). So I do what I need to do to survive.

I would love an “Advent Police…..Where’s the donuts?” T-shirt, lol. The extent of my law-abiding wrt Advent is I prefer not to sing Christmas carols *in church on Sunday* before Christmas Eve. Because really, how often do we get to be holier than the Baptists?? Lol!

Ok the irony is I typed that comment (feeling holier than Advent police bc I am so chill about the observance of Advent) before going to a neighborhood Bible Study at which we *read the flipping birth story of Jesus*!!! I was simultaneously full of offended sensibilities and bemused at my less than chill (inward) reaction. Lots to ponder now. It really did feel like opening a Christmas present early. But obviously not something I need to make other ppl feel self conscious or belittled or judged over.

Thank you – you helped me unpack some of my own prejudices and helped me down off of my own Advent Police-Issued High Horse. This Presbyterian not-a-preacher is guilty of sinfully loving Advent, but I vow to stop worrying about when certain songs are sung, stop rolling my eyes at early decorating, and to stop silently sucking my teeth when I see my kids playing with the Wise Men and Baby Jesus in the Fisher-Price Little People Nativity Set at my mother-in-law’s house and instead be grateful that they have a grasp on the “reason for the season”. I’ll enjoy the season as I find it, and blast “We Need A Little Christmas” from my Glee soundtrack all year long!

P.S. You might have to remind me of this again during Lent, because I really struggle with people who decorate for Easter just because the calendar flipped to springtime….

I don’t fit your exact specifications, so I’m wondering if one has any credibility to discuss this issue with you if one is a preacher’s wife (not a lady preacher), mother of 6 children (not 2), homeschooler of 4 of those children (you didn’t say anything about educational work), and works 3 part-time jobs (rather than 2)? 😉

“But only from a very select group of women. If you happen to be a lady preacher, be married to a preacher yourself, parent two small children, and work two-part time jobs, then I would love your tips for how to appropriately “do Advent” in the comments section below.”

Would it be considered a violation of Advent protocol if I watched “It’s A Wonderful Life” tonight? I’m thinking that “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” would be okay, although I forgot to record it last night. Since TV wasn’t invented when Advent took form, I’m wondering how that might mesh with modern life.

[…] a perfect Christmas. As Christians, we might need rescuing from the tyranny of the expectation of a peaceful, calm, not-too-joyful-yet Advent. Holidays are heavy as we grieve for those who have died, and for those who might just be absent […]

[…] to the entirety of Handel’s Messiah on our Thanksgiving road trip this year (#sorrynotsorry Advent police). As much as I love it (and I really, really love it), it’s not enough to describe just how […]

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